Category: Blog

Career Lingo: ‘We Will Begin Reviewing Applications ...’
April 13, 2015
Image: Men reading the newspaper, Nanjing, China, by Stougard
Job ads in academe often use the same hiring jargon even while the disciplines, institutions, and positions vary widely. The language may be standard but its meaning is anything but. Culture and circumstance govern how each word and phrase is applied.
So far in this series we have examined the nuances of the following career lingo found in job ads: “degree completed by,” “in a related field,” and “required” versus “preferred” qualifications.” Now we turn to another ubiquitous phrase that can mean different things to different committees: “applications will begin to be reviewed” or “we will begin reviewing applications” on such and such a date.
To begin, what does “begin” mean here? Years ago, when I first saw the phrase in a job ad, I imagined the members of the search committee sitting down on a certain date -- the morning of the “begin” date -- and gazing upon a huge...

Don't Fear Fund Raising, Part 5
How to be a good steward once the gift has been given.
San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive / Wikimedia Commons
By David D. Perlmutter
When department chairs, directors, deans, and others embark on academic fund raising for the first time, they naturally focus on "the ask"—that is, on getting the gift. Equally important, however, is the long tail of fund raising: the stewardship of gifts.
There’s a lot to absorb about how you satisfy the many legal, ethical, and procedural requirements of a donation, oversee the munificence over time, and keep donors (or their heirs or trustees) apprised of its progress. And it’s crucial that you do learn because:
It’s your job. You, as lead academic officer of your department or college, hold the legal and fiduciary obligation to steward gifts responsibly.
It’s the ethical thing to do since the gift is in your charge.
For some donors, an initial donation may be a "test gift." Handle it well, and...

Career Lingo: ‘In Related Field.’
March 16, 2015
Image: "Rapala lures 1," by Fanny Schertzer
Context and audience matter in understanding a foreign language. The same is true of academia’s “career lingo.” Comprehending the nuances of job-market terms can help you with your application materials, presentations, and interviews -- indeed, with every aspect of your candidacy.
So far in this series we’ve defined “required” versus “preferred” qualifications and the meaning of “degree completed by.” Now we turn to a phrase seen in many a job advertisement: “in related field” (or “related discipline”). For example, an ad might state that a position requires candidates to have a “Ph.D. in Geology or in related field.”
Seems pretty straightforward, right? But as usual the words and descriptions used in job ads often have variants and complexities that need unpacking.
First off, this particular phrase in an ad does not mean: “We don’t care what field your Ph.D. is in.” Neither does it mean: “All disciplines are pretty much the same to us; anyone with...

Avoiding PTDS: Post-Tenure Depression Syndrome
Why are the years after academics have ‘made it’ so gloomy for so many?
Marc Worrell / Creative Commons
By David D. Perlmutter
Iknow about two dozen academics who were tenured and promoted to associate professor last year. They traverse the spectrum of the academy, from engineers to language scholars to sociologists. They work at community colleges, research universities, and small liberal-arts colleges. They range in personality type from the quiet and studious to the brash and outspoken.
None of them are visibly happy.
I mean the kind of career-related elation thatwe’re familiar with in popular culture and in the lives of nonacademics: the giddy joy of football players doing back flips and high fives after winning a big game or, more equivalently, the champagne-popping business professional who has just gotten a major promotion. In contrast, most of the new associate professors I know were so low-key about their promotions that I found out only via a title change on their...

Don't Kill the Conference Interview
January 20, 2015
Image: Tommy Kirk as Travis Coates in Old Yeller (1957), directed by Robert Stevenson
Rebecca Schuman recently called for the death of the conference interview for faculty jobs. A key reason she listed was the expense, citing the Modern Language Association’s recent convention in Vancouver as a case in point. In fact, she went to considerable length to prove that anyone traveling to Vancouver for the meeting would need to spend more than $1,000.
Case closed -- on Vancouver and MLA. But a data point is not a universal. Many faculty members with full-time jobs and many graduate students seeking employment still think the conference interview is a useful enterprise.
First, academia is not a monolith. A Ph.D. holder in German (Schuman’s field) might view the job market as a Kesselschlacht (a confused cauldron battle). But my own area of communications is in the fifth year of a boom in tenure-track hiring. We get only 20 to 40 applicants for...

December 1, 2014
Don't Fear Fund Raising, Part 4
Why it’s important to be pedantic about donor intent
Money Hedge / Creative Commons
By David D. Perlmutter
Agift to your department can seem so straightforward, like the first time a donor told me, "I want to endow a scholarship for a student." Easy enough, I thought. Then a development officer explained that in accepting this seemingly simple gift, we had to satisfy tax laws, foundation rules, departmental mission and priority, and "donor intent."
That last criterion was the one that needed the most pains­taking definition. What did the donor mean by "student"? An undergraduate, a graduate student, or either? A student already in good standing in our major or a first-year recruit? Could the student be a double major or just minoring in our field? Would requirements include a certain GPA in high school or college? Was there a geographic condition on the gift—that the recipient come from a particular high school or the donor’s home...

David D. Perlmutter. “Know the Vital Players in Your Career: Your Own Actions.” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 32, 2014, pp. A36-37.
October 27, 2014
Know the Vital Players in Your Career: Your Own Actions
Do good, be good, and let others know you are good.
Victoria Horton, Creative Commons
By David D. Perlmutter
Too many would-be academics never finish their dissertations, never get tenure-track jobs, or never earn tenure—through no fault of their own—to believe that success in higher education simply requires pulling yourself up by your cognitive bootstraps. That said, you can’t always fault bad luck or lousy advisers. Sometimes your own action, or inaction, is to blame.
I’ve spent the past year writing this series about all of the players who can affect your career: the department chair, the head of the P&T committee,the faculty factions, the senior campus administrators, the external evaluators, the university P&T committee, your graduate-school or tenure-track peers, and, most recently, your own attitudes and habits of mind.
Now I want to close this series by making the following case: It’s not enough to know...

Episode #18 of my radio show TOP’S TEN is up! TOP’S TEN seeks out successful and influential people in politics and government, the many professions, the physical and social sciences, or the arts and humanities and asks them to reveal their lives, ideas and ideals through their playlist. Our format is simple: We ask our guests what pieces of music mean the most to them and to tell us the story behind the infatuation.
Broadcast: 28 September 2014
Guest: Dave Walker, Owner, Walker Communications, KJDL-FM, KJDL-AM
Song List:
1. Not Fade Away – Buddy Holly
2. Words Of Love – Buddy Holly
3. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
4. Harvest – Neil Young
5. Helplessly Hoping – CSN&Y
6. Tusk – Fleetwood Mac
7. Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? – Waylon Jennings
8. You’re No Good – Linda Ronstadt
9. Tracks Of My Tears – Smokey Robinson
10. With A Little Help From My Friends – Joe Cocker
...

Episode #17 of my radio show TOP’S TEN is up! TOP’S TEN seeks out successful and influential people in politics and government, the many professions, the physical and social sciences, or the arts and humanities and asks them to reveal their lives, ideas and ideals through their playlist. Our format is simple: We ask our guests what pieces of music mean the most to them and to tell us the story behind the infatuation.
Broadcast: 21 September 2014
Guest: Morris Wilkes, Owner, The Wilkes Company, A Government Relations, Public Affairs and Political Consulting Firm
Song List:
1. If – David Gates & Bread
2. We’ve Only Just Begun – The Carpenters
3. Precious And Few – Climax
4. You Light Up My Life – Debbie Boone
5. Memories – Elvis Presley
6. Don’t Pull Your Love – Hamilton, Joe, Frank & Reynolds
7. Love Can Make You Happy – Mercy
8. Theme from The Summer of ’42 – Peter Nero
9. Joy To The World – Three Dog Night
10. American Pie – Don McLean
...